


Teenage Wildlife

by Silberias



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Elia deserved better, F/M, Gen, Stannis the Mannis The Besteros in Westeros, if you can't tell from this story I'm on team Rhaegar can take a hammer to the face, so I arranged some better, this is just Stannis being grumpy tbh because I love grumpy Stannis, which he did so lucky me I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 13:38:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12082146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: Stannis is tasked by his brother, through orders delivered by Ned Stark, to go to Dragonstone and root out the last dragons--to bring back news or proof of their deaths. Before he goes, though, Ned Stark asks he act with honor instead of duty. Stannis listens.





	Teenage Wildlife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlueCichlid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueCichlid/gifts), [branwyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/branwyn/gifts).



> I was talking to...I think it was either Branwyn or BlueCichlid and this occurred to me and I've not been able to rest really until it was written. I was even able to resist bothering you both with my mad plots!
> 
> Title is in reference to the fact that all the players in Robert's Rebellion were so terribly, terribly young. 
> 
> Please bear with me on some of the little changes I've made to canon events and their ultimate effects on larger canon events. I do hope that you enjoy it!

> Those midwives to history put on their bloody robes. 
> 
> \- Teenage Wildlife / David Bowie

* * *

 

Robert had seen sense and not wed the Lannister woman--both he and his brother in arms, Eddard Stark, had declared the slaughtered woman and children presented by Tywin Lannister were not Princess Elia and the heirs of House Targaryen. For 'incompetence' that marriage had been forestalled. Now Robert had sent Stannis, half-starved, to Dragonstone to root out the last of the Targaryens. Rhaella, Viserys, and any others to be found.

Upon freeing him from the seige of the Tyrells Eddard Stark had given him the orders on behalf of their new king but had had his own wisdom to add.

"I go to recover my sister," the man said, his gray eyes distant and sad, "or whatever is left of her. Robert claims the throne on the betrayal of Jaime Lannister, my honor as his friend, and a scant bit  of royal blood--he did not slay Aerys himself. It is a shaky thing, all the more so if Lyanna is dead in Dorne--for it was for her sake the war was started."

"There were squabbles enough to start a war regardless," Stannis said bitterly. The Tyrells had taken unholy glee in starving Storm's End and had done it with the kind of premeditation that did not become the situation. How might things have gone differently had they truly taken a side rather than watching a garrison of forty men boil rats for a year?

"Aye, but this one has put your brother on the throne. He crowed when Tywin Lannister presented him those mutilated bodies, only for his exultation to turn to fury when he saw not Elia Martell but the pocked face of a kitchen scullion. Robert wants her and her children dead, especially the boy if he may only have one. If you find them...do what honor demands of you as a knight, not a brother."

"And destabilize Robert's power--you know there are more loyalists than rebels, Lord Stark, and that will be true for longer than my brother can stove ment's chests in with his hammer."

"Elia Martell is a widow now, and you are effectively Robert's heir, Lord Baratheon. Tis an easy enough solution, you'll know his measure truly if he demands you to become a kinslayer."

"I took you for a slobbering wolf, not a wily fish."

Eddard gave him a wan smile at that and a bracing squeeze to the shoulder before swinging himself up onto his horse.

"The maester taught us of Dorne, even in Winterfell, and how the heir to the Iron Throne wed a princess to bring peace--I would rather have had my brother wed his Lady Catelyn, and have had your brother wed his Lady Lyanna, than all of this. It cannot be helped though. May the old gods give you favorable winds, Lord Baratheon."

So Stannis had set sail for Dragonstone. The ancestral holdings of his grandmother Rhaelle's family. There was good information to act on--an estimate of the size of the garrison, a fair certainty that Queen Rhaella had fled there with her last son. Rumors that she was with child or had recently borne one. Robert wanted her dead--she their father's cousin as well as a boy of seven. An infant, too, if there was one. Something told him that Princess Elia had been smuggled there as well, with her children.

The woman and children that had been 'accidentally' slaughtered by Lannister bannermen were no doubt planted on purpose long before Tywin Lannister had made his way to 'aid' his beleaguered king. There had not been time to switch them at any other point.

The passage to Dragonstone was horrible. They arrived in the midst of a horrific squall and Stannis had had to make the hard choice of signalling the two other ships with him to sail out of the storm. They would dash each other to pieces if they put into the harbor together. If he attempted to enter and weigh anchor ahead of the others, only for the defending garrison to murder the men aboard his ship, it changed nothing to send the other ships away. Maybe it would save a few sailors to serve his brother, hopefully.

Davos Seaworth, the smuggler who had sailed in with onions and Dornish potatoes one dark night at Storm's End, stood at his side. His hand was healing well, he said, and Stannis believed him. He also didn't want to drown without knowing it was going to happen--and for the fact that he'd saved Stannis' life and he had a lifetime of sailing under his belt, Stannis allowed him on the deck.

"You must've known by the skies this storm was coming," Davos said, leaning in towards Stannis to keep his words between them.

"Yes, and I hoped to arrive before it got this bad. Can't help the wind though. Hopefully they bet on no one sailing in the middle of this," Stannis replied.

"Were it anyone but you, milord, they would have won that bet." Stannis gave him a humorless smile.

There was a small group of men-at-arms waiting for them on the beach, but they did not raise bows nor alarm at them as they rowed in or when they pulled the boat ashore. He felt his heart sink, wondering if history would repeat itself--that there was some naked woman bound up in chains, betrayed, captured, and dishonored by her bannermen. Eddard Stark had been right to worry, it seemed.

"Lord Baratheon we've been instructed to bring you into the castle. The Queen wishes to reach a peace with you."

"I regret to inform you that your lady may no longer claim the title of Queen. My brother Robert Baratheon sits on the Iron Throne and your lady is not his wife."

"As you wish, my lord," the man said, turning to lead them up the path up to the castle. The rain and winds continued to buffet them--if they weren't soaked from the row over they would be now. Stannis could feel a deep body shiver starting in his gut. All his bulk, the muscle and the fat alike, was gone and had not yet returned. Starvation was such a horrible death because sometimes it wasn't always the lack of food that killed--the cold struck deeper now than it had before.

Ferocious dragons were carved upon nearly every surface in the keep, inlaid in the floors and twisting around columns, their eyes red and yellow and white, glittering gems and stones.

Their guide led them up several flights of stairs until they reached a hallway filled with servants and retainers. They stood lined up on either side of the hallway and they bowed and curtsied low as Stannis passed. None raised their eyes from the floor and many shoulders were sunk low in defeat. The men-at-arms were poorly kitted and thin, they probably had a sword between each set of three. He might have had his ships enter the harbor one by one in safety if this was the resistance they were to encounter.

At the end of the corridor two guards, a bit better armored than the others, stood at either side of a door. This was where he would have to choose: obey his brother or heed Eddard Stark.

"I am Lord Stannis Baratheon of Storm's End, Lord Paramount of the Stormlands, and heir to the Iron Throne, you will allow me entry."

"You are welcome, Lord Baratheon, so long as you enter in peace."

The meager guards seemed to perk a little, trying to intimidate him despite their being outnumbered and at a disadvantage with their weapons.

"I am Lady Rhaella's kin and an honorable man, but bring me the bread and salt to bind my men and I properly." Stannis waited patiently while every man he'd brought with him took the bread and salt. His decision was made at least in part now: he would not murder anyone this night in this keep. Now he only had to choose what to do when he left here.

He allowed only Davos to accompany him into the solar the guards led him into. The rest of the men waited obediently in the hallway. The shiver in Stannis' belly was persisting and he hoped this interview would conclude soon--hopefully there was still firewood on this horrible rock so he might warm himself.

Within there were more maids, their hands and aprons stained nearly black with blood. Stannis felt acid try to claw its way up his throat and his next shiver had nothing to do with the cold. These cowards had done more than betray their sworn liege, they'd done murder. He would execute every one of them once he knew the truth of things. There was a baby screaming it's grief to the world somewhere in these rooms.

The guard knocked at another door and heard some soft command to enter--he opened the door and gestured Stannis and Davos into the room.

A huge bed, one fit for a queen, dominated the room--a sheet, half soaked with blood, covered a feminine body laid out in the middle of it. One hand, purpled already with death, hung loose over the edge. Stannis clenched his teeth together and turned to look for the other occupants of the room. The babe's crying was here, screeching and uninterrupted. Like a wounded horse.

"I would stand to curtsy but I am--" his hand darted for his sword as he spun on his heel. Sitting tucked in a corner, lit by a fair number of candles and shielded from his initial glance around the room by the door, was a dark-skinned woman with a hooked nose and a beautiful mouth. In her arms a tiny bundle made all and sundry know its displeasure. Stannis only had to look on the scene for a few moments before he knew without doubt that the figure on the bed was Queen Rhaella--and the child who howled as loudly as the winds outside was the last child of the Mad King.

"Lady Elia," he began, bowing to her and seeing Davos belatedly follow his movement.

"I am yet a Princess of Dorne even if my husband and his family are all dead, my lord," she replied, seemingly unbothered by the fussing infant in her arms. Stannis touched his bow a little lower in apology, murmuring _Princess Elia_ , as he rose to his full height.

"What has happened here?"

Just because he could assume did not mean it was the truth. Dornishmen might be false but a woman who quickly and correctly put a man in his place? That woman, regardless of where she was from, would probably share the truth with him.

"King Aerys sent us to Dragonstone a month ago when his maesters announced I carry my husband's child. He instructed his maesters to do all they could to save the child when I am brought to bed, and decreed that Queen Rhaella would raise my children after I died. He did not know, however, that she had long concealed her own pregnancy from him. This is his daughter, Daenerys, second of her name of the House Targaryen. Her mother decreed it barely an hour ago as she bled out. The child came much too early for both mother and babe to live."

"And your own babe?"

"Will probably kill me, as my husband intended it would--he would neatly avoid comparisons to foolish kings who kept wives and mistresses beneath the same roofs and my brothers would have no choice but to swallow their grief and remain loyal. Their mother having, of course, provided the Crown with a poor mare."

"But now it is Robert Baratheon who sits as king, awaiting for the delivery of Lyanna Stark to his bed--is there no wetnurse for that child?" The wailing was splitting his head like he was being tortured, though Davos at his side seemed fairly nonplussed.

"She shall have no wetnurse. She shall latch to my breast and feed there as I promised her mother or starve. At the moment she chooses to starve," Princess Elia's voice turned just the slightest bit snappish, not truly offensive but there was certainly authority in her tone. Stannis tried not to let his face fall to stone in response but she seemed to sense it nonetheless and relented a little in her harshness, a bit of humor touching her tone now, "it is the Dornish blood of Queen Mariah and Queen Dyanna that does it to her, my children were much the same at first. She will come to her senses before nightfall."

"How far gone are you?" Davos' question rocked both Stannis and Princess Elia--the lady's eyes went wide while Stannis felt like the muscles of his jaw were about to pull away from the bone.

"I--I am two months gone, maybe three, my lord," she replied. The smuggler nodded and then grabbed Stannis by the arm and manhandled him across the room to whisper in his ear. With the noise of the storm and the child they would not be overheard.

"If you kill her or give her to your ungrateful king I swear I will hire a Faceless Man to murder you and both your miserable brothers. Murdering a woman already fated to die means I'd get a cheap rate even on a king."

"What would you have me do then?"

"Marry her, claim you bed her thoroughly and often. That you believe an heir will result soon. She's not too far gone for people to believe the child yours, and your brother might live in hope that she will die in childbed."

"And if she does not die? What if the child comes out as a silvery Targaryen?"

"She's a memorable woman and in command of herself and her household--you could do far worse for a wife. If the child is the wrong color give it to me--my wife will hide it, you will tell all that the babe was sickly and died. Simple."

"Simple," Stannis echoed in a low, glancing at Princess Elia. If she truly didn't suit him then he could easily send her back to Dorne, keeping whatever 'heir' she bore him and raising it as he saw fit. If she died...well, Robert would be happy. His mind made up, Stannis paced back across the room to Princess Elia.

"Princess I have but a few more questions."

"I will try to answer them," she replied, "but then you must retire to rest and I must ensure that the Queen's body is seen to."

"First where is the boy, Viserys?"

"The maester gave him a thimble of dreamwine to calm him and get him to sleep several hours ago. He was in a panic at the bloody sheets coming out of his mother's chambers. He is in one of the rooms adjoining the solar, I believe. It will be a hard morning for him tomorrow, gaining a sister but losing his mother."

"And your children, Rhaenys and Aegon?"

At this her mouth slipped into a thin line for a moment. It was still up in the air, as far as she was concerned probably, what he meant to do with these Targaryens he found. Robert had instructed him to kill them in their beds if he had to. Eddard Stark had counseled mercy and honor.

"Sharing the bed with their uncle and a kitten, so when he wakes he is not alone."

A kitten.

Stannis of three months ago would have eaten such a creature, but here it slept amongst the children of princes and kings.

A kitten.

Of all the details she chose to include, of all the things she might have said, this one sealed it all in place for him. Princess Elia had no doubt had reports of three ships bearing the crowned stag making their way towards the island but she had not abandoned her duty or lost her composure. Instead she saw to the children in her care and helped her goodmother go peacefully into death. She allowed three frightened children a kitten to cling to amidst the storm, on perhaps the night of their deaths even. A kitten.

Another round of shivers quaked his body--he needed to see to this and then get himself before a fire and into dry clothing.

"Is there yet a septon here?"

His question startled her but she shook her head. Stannis ran his hands through his hair, tugging a little. He did not want to wait, lest any of his men prove untrustworthy and take the revenge their king desired. He could not wait. Thankfully Princess Elia seemed to understand the meaning of his question though and ventured:

"There is a heart tree my husband planted a year ago, in Aegon's Garden. It is still a pathetic thing, hardly more than a sapling, but I'm told it is the same breed as the trees the Northerners marry before."

"Good. We shall go there. Davos will hold the babe, it should not be much more than a few minutes."

"And thus I am yet again married to the king's heir," she said, "with all the joys therein associated." She stood and gave the wrathful babe to Davos and shook her head with a soft laugh when the screaming stopped as the newborn stared up at the smuggler's face. Stannis' brows pinched together and he leaned to look at the child for just a moment--blue eyes that would lighten to purple soon enough, a few wisps of nearly transparent silver hair, a face red from crying. Davos jiggled the girl a little, embarrassed, and murmured that she only smelled the storm on him.

Princess Elia took his arm and they walked quickly through the castle to the garden she'd spoken of. About halfway there he couldn't conceal one of his shivers. He inhaled slowly and kept walking, gritting his teeth against the spasms. Cold. Too cold. _A few minutes more_ , he insisted to himself. The lady at his side glanced at him but kept pace with him despite her curiosity.

The garden was probably lovely, probably the only lovely thing here, but the storm tore through the avenues and paths. The shrubs were bent and gnarled from the usual winds but even they seemed taxed today. Princess Elia's hair was tied back in a great deal of braids and so it did not thrash around her face but it did tear at the dagged sleeves of her gown as well as the surcoat above her kirtle. Stannis decided that even if Robert's war had been pointless and wasteful it had produced one good thing: such a dutiful and intelligent woman was free of such a foolish man as Rhaegar Targaryen.

He hoped she would--he didn't know what he hoped as she led him unerringly down a poorly-kept path, but he certainly did hope.

"I have not been here since my husband had the gardners plant the tree," she said, her voice raised to be heard over the whistling wind, "but it is a living thing, innocent of him and his folly. I could not bear to have it chopped down when Rhaegar left the island, nor even when the King recalled us to the capitol."

"Do you have any other objections to the island?"

"I have the blood of Queen Nymeria and Princess Meria, my lord, and this is the cursed rock the Valyrians landed upon and from whence the Targaryens came--I have all objection to the island. Were I a forest fairy I would strike it back into the sea."

"As the children of the forest broke the Arm," Stannis found himself saying, barely aware of the nonsense he was spouting. He was rewarded with a sly smile and she squeezed his arm gently.

Stannis had never met her before--it was rumored that Eddard Stark had never once met his new lady wife until the day he wed her. If this conversation portended their future it was not a bad one, it seemed.

"I hope you live," he declared, "and I hope it is a daughter who looks exactly as you do." This got a short chuckle from his companion and she leaned a bit more on his arm as the tortured weirwood sapling came into view.

"I hope these things as well, my lord."

Many months later, after Eddard--Ned--Stark spoke on Stannis' behalf, decrying Robert's bloodthirst threatening a resumption of the war, that Lady Elia Baratheon was brought to her birthing bed. Her husband had sent for the maesters who cared for her mother and stayed at her side the whole day as she labored--and at the end she bore a daughter. The girl had jet black curls and the darkest blue eyes anyone had ever seen. A true Baratheon, it was proclaimed throughout Storm's End, a credit to both the mother and father--though a shame 'twere a girl, a shame the maesters forebade the lady to conceive again.

They named her Meria, and she grew up with Lady Daenerys, the Lady of Dragonstone, as well as her elder half-siblings at her side. Viserys was taken North, promised as a ward of House Stark until he reached his majority--and then he would be sent to the Watch, with regrets but he was the son of a deposed king nonetheless.

Robert made for a poor king, though he had decent advisors, and his dear Lady Lyanna lived just long enough to see him one last time. He made her Queen, wedding her at her deathbed, and claimed her son as his own. It was a dark eyed and dark haired child, and a boy most importantly to Robert. Everyone knew the child was of Targaryen get, but it looked like a cross of Stark and Baratheon well enough. Queen Lyanna had named her son Jon but Robert renamed the child Orys.

Elia, who taught Stannis to accept comfort and gentleness at the point of her razor wit, raged at him when Robert suggested their girl marry the boy. She had withstood Rhaegar's idiocy, she had faced and survived a third pregnancy that might have killed her, she had given her child enough Dornish blood to save it's life, but she would not suffer Meria to wed Rhaegar's bastard. It was a daring too far and she showed every truest color of her house in her arguments. Stannis obeyed her and kept no bitterness over it. No matter the children's names it would be brother wedding sister and he would not countenance it either.

In the end Orys Baratheon was betrothed to Lady Margaery Tyrell, and Meria was promised to her cousin Quentyn--Robert grumbled that Storm's End would fill with poisonous and foul creatures but Stannis stood by the decision. Renly had no right to rule the castle: Stannis claimed Meria as his heir and she would rule after him. She needed a husband who was trained to allow his wife to lead, a man whose family would not seek to usurp her through her marriage.

There was no guarantee a Dornishman would do the trick, but at least Meria would be able to make entreaties to her uncles to intervene on her behalf.

Stannis enjoyed quiet afternoons, on some of the clear summer days, with his impulsively-gotten wife. Elia had a pleasant voice for singing and reading, and she encouraged Davos Seaworth to learn his letters from Maester Cressen--and she heartily enjoyed passing an afternoon drawing while Stannis worked on the running of his keep and his lands. Elia was also a fine rider and enjoyed hawking--she loved it so that once Stannis felt moved to tell her of when he was a boy and had nursed a goshawk back to health.

His wife was moved to tears, gentle ones though, and had tucked herself against his chest for several silent minutes.

"It seems to be your habit, husband, to spare the broken--you see their worth, give them your protection."

"Perhaps it is not my habit but a cursed weakness of heart," he quickly replied, his tone japing despite the acidity of his words.

"I have had a husband with a weak heart before, my love," Elia said, reaching up to cup the side of his face and draw him down to kiss her, "and that is not your curse."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Things would have been so different if Elia had gone to Dragonstone, I think!!
> 
> Thank you for reading, please let me know what you thought of this little story :D


End file.
